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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884513">Is Anyone Laughing Now?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bebtea/pseuds/bebtea'>bebtea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wolf 359 (Radio)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Am I Alone Now?, Angst, Panic Attacks, change of mind, i wrote this in March 2020 and it shows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:01:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>536</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884513</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bebtea/pseuds/bebtea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Is Hilbert really trying to convince himself that he shouldn’t be afraid of being alone? Or is he convincing someone else, a long time ago...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Victoire Fourier/Kuan Hui</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Is Anyone Laughing Now?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He was never the same afterwards, and God, wasn’t that such a fucking cliché?</p><p>He tried - they all did - to create some sense of normalcy. To move on and past and upwards and through, but every single night he would strap into his bunk and lie awake, staring at the walls, past the stickers and postcards and Victoire’s sketches into the solid isolated white of the med bay.</p><p>
  <em> There’s… </em>
</p><p>
  <em> There’s </em>
</p><p>
  <em> nothing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Nothing here. </em>
</p><p>Victoire couldn’t find out. Nobody could know exactly what had happened over those fourteen days, and to their credit, they didn’t ask. Anyway, it wasn’t long after that Fisher was jettisoned into the black, and Lambert started coughing and the events of Box 953 seemed distant, almost laughable when Canaveral stopped answering the phone entirely.</p><p>
  <em> “Do you remember a lot of it?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “No… no, uh, it’s starting to fade.” </em>
</p><p>And by the strip light of day that was true. When Victoire snuggled into him reading <em> Pride and Prejudice </em> and doing all the voices; when he was focused on his work, it was completely true.</p><p>
  <em> “I’m acing my psych evals, ‘Toire.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You can’t “ace” a psych eval, Kuan!” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You just haven’t seen mine.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You’re an idiot.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Yes, and you love it.” </em>
</p><p>But right now. Right now he’s listening to the sound of his own wheezing breathing get faster and faster and it’s driving him slowly out of his mind, and <em> quarantine exists for a reason, Dr Hui </em> and <em> it’s okay Kuan, it won’t be for long, I’ll come and see you every day, all right? </em></p><p>He’s already watched this disease rot Lambert from the inside out. He knows exactly what’s going to happen, and yet the thing that scares him most is being alone.</p><p>“Dr Hui. Pain in your chest is not due to abnormal heart functioning. You are having a panic attack.”</p><p>“Dr Selberg, I, I, I-“</p><p>“I want you to breathe with me, yes? In and out. In and out. Nice and slowly, yes? You’re safe. I am here. You are not alone. You should not be afraid of being alone.”</p><p>Hui wheezes. His eyes manage to focus on the doctor’s silhouette.</p><p>“You’re really there, sir?”</p><p>“I’m really here, Dr Hui.”</p><p>“Kuan. Please. Please can you...”</p><p>“... of course, Kuan. I am Elias.”</p><p>This was a fact Hui knew, but had never really heard out loud. First names usually felt so awkward; vulnerable, even. Selberg would always be Selberg in the morning, light glinting off his skull and glasses, but in the murky gloom of monitor lights Elias might just be okay.</p><p>“Do you want to hear a joke?”</p><p>“-what?”</p><p>“I said, do you want to hear a joke?”</p><p>“I… sure?”</p><p>“Three men are on a deserted island…”</p><p>And Hui does laugh, long and loud, more at the absurdity of his hardass senior officer trying to be funny rather than anything else. But it brings a smile to Selberg’s face too. Later, maybe he’ll hear echoes of that laugh. Echoes of failure. Of a young man torn apart week by week, month by month, a brilliant scientist used as nothing but a tool by him, by Marcus Cutter. Maybe he cares at least that much.</p><p> </p><p>He probably doesn’t, but it’s nice to hope </p>
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